The Accipitridae, the family of hawks, eagles, kites, harriers, and Old
World vultures, include some of the world's most awe-inspiring birds. Primary
among them are the huge tropical eagles which subsist on monkeys and other
mammals: the neotropical Harpy Eagle (left), tropical Asia's Philippine
(or Monkey-eating) Eagle Pithecophaga jefferyi, and tropical Africa's
Martial Eagle Polemaetus bellicosus. These are the world's largest
birds of prey; I've had the good fortune to have quality experiences with
each. We had just inadvertently flushed this adult Harpy Eagle off its
prey in Brazil, which permitted this close view; more of the story of this
nesting Harpy Eagle is here.
For decades I had judged the Philippine Eagle as the world's "best bird";
the story of seeing its nest in the wild, with many photos, is here.
And the BBC series "The Life of Birds with David Attenborough" has unbelievable
shots of Martial Eagles hunting monkeys in east Africa.

These experiences do not come easily. It took me seven trips over 24
years into Harpy Eagle habitat to observe one. Once, in eastern Ecuador,
Rita & I were on a trail deep in the forest with local guide, Fausto.
As we struggled unsuccessful to see a monklet heard by the guide, Fausto
wandered down the trail and was shocked by a Harpy Eagle gliding into the
canopy, snatching a monkey, and flying off. Rita & I missed it just
by moments and a few yards....
While the huge tropical eagles impress with their size & strength,
they are not the spectacular flying machines epitomized by the migratory
hawks. The Arctic breeding Rough-legged Hawk (right) is one of those
long-distance migrants. Regular in winter in the interior of North America,
during "invasion years" immatures (like this one) may turn up hundreds
of miles farther south. Other American species, including Broad-winged
Hawk Buteo platypterus in the east and Swainson's Hawk B. swainsoni
in Mexico, migrate in incredible numbers, circling in huge "kettles" on
the rising thermals [some great eastern U.S. sites to observe hawk migration
were outlined in Heintzelman (1976); the impressive California site at
Pt. Diablo, Marin Co., is fully discussed in Binford (1979)]. I am aware
that raptor migration can be just as impressive in the Old World, at places
like Falsterbo, Sweden; the Bosporus, Turkey; and Eilat, Israel. Many of
these are in the genus Buteo, and they are often the "standard"
hawk in temperate climes around the globe. In California, for example,
our usual hawk -- the default i.d. for any large soaring raptor -- is the
Red-tailed
Hawk (below left). Like many hawks, it comes in a bewildering variety
of plumages and color morphs, the whole spectrum of which cannot be shown
in any literature. One learns to use shape, size & behavior.

This particular Red-tail is an adult that had caught a large Gopher
Snake in the middle of a country road, and was struggling with it at road's
edge when we came upon it (you can see the snake's tail just sticking out
on the left side of the back). While reptiles comprise only a small portion
of the Red-tail's prey, numerous hawks specialize on snakes, including
three species of snake-eagle (Circaetus) in Africa and six species
of serpent-eagles (Spilornis) in Asia, plus another serpent-eagle
(Dryotriorchis spectabilis) in the Congo basin, Africa.

Perhaps the most graceful of the Accipitridae are the kites. The Old
World species (especially Black Kite Milvus migrans) can be too
ubiquitously common, but a lot of New World species are either very lovely
& graceful, or specialized and cool. An example of a specialized bird
is the Snail Kite (below) whose dietary preferences run primarily
to the apple snail Pomacea, although it will take a variety of crustaceans.
There are a huge number of bird-eating hawks in the world, most of
the genus Accipiter (49 species comprising 20% of all the family).
Many species are rare & local; many are difficult to identify. For
North America, a good starting point for Accipiter i.d. is Dunne,
Sibley & Sutton (1988). I photographed an Accipiter in Madagascar in
1995, but it wasn't until the appearance of Morris & Hawkins (1998)
that I could confidently identify it as Frances' Goshawk A. francesii.
There is much to be learned with this group. Many Accipiters fly
through the forest in search of small avian prey; some even frequent bird-feeders.
In North America there are two widespread species, difficult to separate
without practice. The one shown below (left) is the Cooper's Hawk
(an adult male in flight). Most harriers (genus Circus; 13 species)
glide over marshes or open country on tilt-up wings searching for small
mammals and birds. A pied example (below right) is the Eastern Marsh-Harrier
(or Spotted Marsh-Harrier) of eastern Asia, wintering to New Guinea.

There are also a number of shy, hard-to-see, forest hawks, like those
in the genus Leucopternis of the New World tropics, that are very
much a treat to find. Another group of tropical hawks -- genus Buteogallus
-- specialize in feeding along streams or estuary edges, eating amphibians
(especially frogs), crabs and freshwater crayfish, along with small mammals
& reptiles. Few of them soar much, but the two below do: the White
Hawk (left) and the Common Black-Hawk (right).I've always
thought it would be [keen/groovy/cool/hot/fat -- you pick the slang] to
show a White Hawk next to a Black Hawk, so here they are. Note how both
have broad wings and very short, broad tails.

Yet another entire set of species make up the Old World vultures (these
prove to be unrelated to New World vultures which are actually modified
storks; see my New
World Vulture page). Huge mobs of these beasts at a carcass are a unique
part of a trip to the open plains of Africa or India [below, top photo;
mostly White-rumped (Indian White-backed) Vultures with a
few Long-billed Vultures Gyps indicus and even a Steppe Eagle Aquila
nipalensis]. At a major carrion feast, larger and more specialized
vultures may arrive, equipped to eat bone and sinew. The top of the African
vulture chain is the Lappet-faced Vulture (below left in a great
photo by Dale & Marian Zimmerman; smaller vulture sneaking in from
the right is a Rueppell's Griffon G. rueppellii).
Among the Old World vultures is a "vulture" that eats palmnuts instead
of carrion, and has a truly striking flight pattern, the Palm-nut Vulture
of tropical Africa (lower row above, right). It is often be the commonest
large raptor in western & central Africa, spending much of its day
perched in or below Elaeis guineenis and Raphia palms, picking
off fruit with its beak, holding them in its talons to rend, and then eating
the fleshy pericarp.

This brief survey has focused primarily on the major subgroups of hawks
& eagles, but over half of the present genera (36 out of 64) are monotypic
(Thiollay 1994). These include many little known and elusive raptors of
tropical forests. On the other hand, some of the Accipitridae are so well
known that they become icons for their lands. Excellent examples are two
fish-eating eagles: the Bald Eagle (below left) of North America
and the African Fish-Eagle (below right) of sub-Saharan Africa.
Each has been photographed innumerable times; I pick these particular shots
because (for the Bald Eagle) it is of the only modern record of an undoubtedly
wild bird at Pt. Pinos, just blocks from where I live, and (for the Fish-Eagle)
because I just love this Greg Lasley flight photo.

For the Bald Eagle, I say the only modern "undoubtedly wild" bird because
the Ventana Wilderness Society began an effort in 1986 to re-establish
a wild population of Bald Eagles on the central coast of California. They
did so by bringing fledgling from British Columbia, "hacking" them to independence
on the Big Sur coast, and radio-tracking their movements (for more details,
see their web site here). By 1993,
a pair of released eagles were nesting nearby; now there are about a half-dozen
nesting pairs. This is a wonderful success, but we can no longer tell whether
an eagle seen locally is a migrant from the north or an offspring of the
re-introduction project. But the Pt. Pinos photo, taken in 1989, was before
any of the released birds had gained full adulthood, so we know this adult
was a wild migrant. It spent several days snatching fish from the surf
line at Pt. Pinos, and was even videotaped doing so by a local TV news
crew.

Hawks and eagles fascinate many people -- not just birdwatchers -- and
the literature is enormous. One can hardly do justice to a family like
this on a short website page. A very fine (and longer) introduction, with
a superb collection of photos, is in Thiollay (1994).

When this two-volume boxed set came out in the late 1960s,
it was the state of the art on knowledge of the world's raptors. It covered
hawks & eagles, plus falcons and the monotypic families of Osprey and
Secretarybird. The authors were renowned experts on the subject; the text
was reasonably thorough and the range maps up-to-date (for the time), and
every species was pictured on full-page plates showing one to a half-dozen
birds. Sometimes these were six species together; on other plates it showed
age/sex variation, or color morphs, or subspecies. Eight artists were included,
among them legendary names like Roger Tory Peterson (Old World vultures),
Don Eckelberry (large falcons, including full page paintings of birds like
an Indian Peregrine perched against the backdrop of Rangaswami's Pillow
-- a fantastic rock formation -- in south India), A. E. Gilbert (great
tropical raptors) and D.M. Henry (his plate of variation in Gyrfalcon is
superb), and Guy Coheleach (a variety of eagles and Buteos). J.
C. Harrison seems to have done most of the lesser-known species... the
"grunt work" as it were (and a good number are printed in black-and-white.
In a book like this, the differences in artistic style is almost welcomed;
these are not "field guide" art to be compared one to another, but a collection
of great artwork combined with an authoritative text.
All that having been said, the classic work is now
showing its age. Much has been learned in the last quarter-century about
ranges; about status; about biology and taxonomy and identification. Yet
in many respects Brown & Amadon's achievement stands the test of time.
It is still a primary reference work on the world's raptors, and their
taxonomic comments (especially at the species level) are still entitled
to much deference. One clue to its value is that no more modern work even
comes close to competing with it (I am aware, however, of some projects
in the works).

There are regional works to which one turns much more readily for identification
material. In North America, the best work is Wheeler & Clark (1995)
whose set of superb color photos show much more of the range of variation
present in Nearctic raptors than anything else, and far surpasses their
earlier effort (Clark & Wheeler 1987). Beginners, however, are well
advised to obtain and read Dunne, Sibley & Sutton (1988) who capture
in worlds and line drawings the essential shape characteristics of common
(but confusing) species. In Europe and the Middle East, I have found Porter
et al. (1981) very useful, but the new Forsman (1999), with many great
color photos, appears to be a major advance.